Great Start to the 2010 season, Damon Kirchmeier

Wow, what a great race! The Sundance Showdown was held June 6th at Sundance Ski Resort near Orem, Utah. This was the first race of the 2010 Utah race series and it was the first Utah DH race in memory to sell out. I waited until the las minute to enter and darn near lost out on a great race weekend. The weather was perfect for the whole race weekend after raining the week before. That rain left the dirt nice and tacky for super fast racing. Saturday’s practice session was just plain fun – lots of fast laps on a course that isn’t technically challenging to ride. The fresh cut through a 100 yard snow field made it just messy enough to splatter your goggles and dirty my nice white Fezzari kit but didn’t cause any real trouble.

Sunday, the conditions held and we had perfect racing conditions for run 1. I decided to race the first run without pedaling, saving myself to give it everything on run 2. The first run went well with no major flaws and the time reflected it. I was in first place and confident I could improve on the second run. Well, that turns out to be a poor strategy because a wind picked up between runs and despite pedaling until my lungs nearly blew out, I was one second slower. Fortunately, the first time held and was good enough for the win.